Student passes away in Spain

On Tuesday evening, Arielle DaCosta (COL `11) passed away in Salamanca, Spain, where she was studying abroad for the year, according to an e-mail sent out by Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson. The e-mail, which did not detail the circumstances surrounding her death, said that DaCosta was pronounced dead at Hospital Clinico and that Spanish authorities notified the University of her passing that day.

Friends described her as energetic, funny, “infectiously enthusiastic,” and “a life-of-the-party girl.”

“If you ever saw her skipping to class or dancing to ‘jams’ or heard her explain ‘dog language,’ you were instantly reminded that this world can be such a happy and joyful place,” GT Wrobel (COL `11) wrote in an e-mail.

Georgetown held a memorial Mass for DaCosta in Dahlgren Chapel, which was attended by  students and faculty, on Wednesday. Father Kevin O’Brien, who celebrated the Mass, said a brief homily about DaCosta’s faith, and University President John DeGioia gave one of the readings.

“There will be relatively few words today,” O’Brien said. “We will lean on what’s familiar: familiar words, rituals, friends, and faces.”

Near the end of the Mass, Professor John Pfordresher, who taught a poetry class at the Villa over the summer, read the last poem that DaCosta wrote for his class, which described waking up in Italy and looking out the window at a vista.

“The poem, her looking out over a vista with a big smile on her face, and getting distracted, really summed her up in a nutshell,” Johanna Peiser (COL `11), a good friend of DaCosta’s, said. “I thought it was really fitting and beautiful that it was part of the sermon.”

Peiser added that DaCosta told her that being in Italy over the summer had “inspired her writing.”
After the service, students gathered in small, tearful groups in Dahlgren Quad.

“She was extremely lively,” Josh Rodriguez (COL `11), who knew her through Georgetown Radio, said. “She was bubbly, cheerful, always happy. She was just an amazing person.”